Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
The bump and run chip shot is really one of those experimental chip shots that isn’t played in the same way to the same distance every single time. Like a lot of chip shots you’re going get longer ones, shorter ones, high ones, low ones landing on a downhill green, landing on an uphill green, so it’s not the same technique every single time. So the key thing here to learn from this is to use a little bit of feedback, a bit of experimental feedback. So what I would encourage you to do is when you are practising, stand to the side of the ball, go ahead and hit maybe 20 shots towards the flag and look at your best, look at your worst but most importantly look at your averages. Look at where your average bump and run chip shot goes to and then draw conclusions from your averages about the shots that you might have been hitting.
So if you are finding that you’re consistently running the ball past the hole and its landing going near the hole but then not stopping and going too far, there’s two main issues here. One is that you are landing the ball too close to the flag, so if you are used to hitting a lot of lob wedges, lob wedges land near the flag, now your bump and running you need to land the ball a lot sooner, a lot shorter otherwise it’s going to roll too far. The other issue with the ball rolling too far is you are not using enough loft, so you might be landing the ball at the front of the green but it’s with a 6-Iron, 5-Iron whatever its going to shoot off the back of the green. Use a bit more loft, it’s going to land and it’s going to stop a little bit quicker, likewise if you’re average shots of those last 20 is too short you might be landing the ball too early, too nutty you need to land it further up or you might be using too much loft so its flying up, spending a bit too much, landing and stopping. So changing the club and changing your landing area is the way that you would change the distance of your shots. You also might consider that you are hitting the ball thin where you catch the top of the ball with the club and the ball shoots off too far or you might be hitting the ball fat where you hit the ground before the ball and that doesn’t quite go far enough. So just consider the quality of the strike, the club selection and the landing area, change these things that you need to change, so have a few more practice goes if you need to change the relevant club then execute that same exercise of hitting those 20 shots again and again assess the averages, learn from that feedback, see whether you are hitting those next 20 shots, longer shots and more left, more right, higher lower and then have a look at those averages and then bit by bit you should be honing in on getting exactly the right distance control and feel for your bump and run chip shots. 2016-09-30 Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
The bump and run chip shot is really one of those experimental chip shots that isn’t played in the same way to the same distance every single time. Like a lot of chip shots you’re going get longer ones, shorter ones, high ones, low ones landing on a downhill green, landing on an uphill green, so it’s not the same technique every single time. So the key thing here to learn from this is to use a little bit of feedback, a bit of experimental feedback. So what I would encourage you to do is when you are practising, stand to the side of the ball, go ahead and hit maybe 20 shots towards the flag and look at your best, look at your worst but most importantly look at your averages. Look at where your average bump and run chip shot goes to and then draw conclusions from your averages about the shots that you might have been hitting.
So if you are finding that you’re consistently running the ball past the hole and its landing going near the hole but then not stopping and going too far, there’s two main issues here. One is that you are landing the ball too close to the flag, so if you are used to hitting a lot of lob wedges, lob wedges land near the flag, now your bump and running you need to land the ball a lot sooner, a lot shorter otherwise it’s going to roll too far. The other issue with the ball rolling too far is you are not using enough loft, so you might be landing the ball at the front of the green but it’s with a 6-Iron, 5-Iron whatever its going to shoot off the back of the green. Use a bit more loft, it’s going to land and it’s going to stop a little bit quicker, likewise if you’re average shots of those last 20 is too short you might be landing the ball too early, too nutty you need to land it further up or you might be using too much loft so its flying up, spending a bit too much, landing and stopping.
So changing the club and changing your landing area is the way that you would change the distance of your shots. You also might consider that you are hitting the ball thin where you catch the top of the ball with the club and the ball shoots off too far or you might be hitting the ball fat where you hit the ground before the ball and that doesn’t quite go far enough. So just consider the quality of the strike, the club selection and the landing area, change these things that you need to change, so have a few more practice goes if you need to change the relevant club then execute that same exercise of hitting those 20 shots again and again assess the averages, learn from that feedback, see whether you are hitting those next 20 shots, longer shots and more left, more right, higher lower and then have a look at those averages and then bit by bit you should be honing in on getting exactly the right distance control and feel for your bump and run chip shots.
